North Korea

Prepping for the Trip

 

North Korea has been on my travel list for awhile but it was only recently that tours have started back up after months of tourist restrictions to the country due to the Ebola and respiratory syndrome cases spreading around.  All tourists have to be part of a tour group to travel to and around North Korea.  This particular tour I joined started in Shenyang and then heads to Dandong, the border town next to North Korea, before embarking on a day long train journey across the border through to Pyongyang.  Korean shops and signs can be found everywhere in Dandong as there is a significant amount of trade between the city with North Korea.  

 

Sitting across from Dandong is Sinujiu and the cities are connected by the Sino Korea Friendship Bridge.  Parts of an older bridge built between 1909 and 1911, also known as Broken Bridge, can be seen alongside the bridge, a reminder of the American intrusion into the countries during the Korean War.  Built by the Japanese during its occupation of Korea between 1937 and 1943, the bridge was bombed by Americans during the Korean War to cut off supplies from the Chinese to North Koreans.  While it is relatively easy for Chinese people to travel to North Korea, South Koreans aren’t allowed in, and many join the boat tours that travel along the Yalu River sitting alongside China and North Korea to catch a glimpse of the North.  At night, there’s a huge contrast between the activity-filled and brightly lit Dandong side and the dark and lifeless Sinujiu, an eerie reminder of what lies on the other side is a country whose people are completely closed off to the rest of the world.  It’s a place where people live with little worry about how much they earn or being homeless because everything is provided for, until famine strikes and there’s nowhere to go because no one is allowed out of the country, which was what happened in the 1990s when many “defectors” made deadly escapes to flee the country.